Female medics ‘are being pressured into becoming sex slaves and are “passed around” between officers or beaten’, it has been reported.
News company Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty disclosed an interview with a so-called ‘field wife’ Margarita, who made the shocking revelation that women were being ‘passed around’ by male Russian officers.
Margarita said those who became field wives would be made to cook, clean, and pleasure the male officers.
She told the publication that those who refused to be sex slaves face punishment and would often be beaten.
She said her stint on the frontline has left her suffering from severe trauma and she regularly suffers from panic attacks, DailyMail reported.
Margarita said she joined as a medic on the frontline in Ukraine so she could provide for her family.
As a single mother of a child with additional needs, she said she left the army in 2011 before returning 11 years later.
She told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty a colonel in charge of her platoon singled her out to make her his ‘field wife’ while she was at the Nizhny Novgorod training camp.
Margarita said she declined the sexual advances, which led the Russian officer to order his soldiers to make life difficult for her.
She said she was made to sleep outside for a month while others slept in tents and houses.
As she continued to refuse the advances, Margarita said she was made to go to the frontline as a form of punishment.
She was in a platoon of seven women, all of whom received sexual advances from commanding officers, it was reported.
‘When we went there no one knew what was going on there. And when we understood everything, there was no turning back,’ she told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
She said she saw one of the officers shoot his ‘field wife’.
She said the officer then shot himself in the hand to make it look as though he was protecting her from a Ukrainian attack.
The woman has been left permanently disabled.
Margarita said she had seen the woman being beaten by the officer with the butt of his rifle multiple times before.
Some women accepted what was happening, she said, as they believed it was better than being sent to the frontline.
She also said it was not just women but Russian male servicemen who were also routinely beaten by officers.
The whole experience has left her undergoing treatment for severe trauma.
She said she is taking anti-depressants and is continuing to suffer panic attacks.
